Lightning Strikes for Bitcoin in 2018?

As a cryptocurrency trader and 'enthusiast', (I'm not a coder) I have always tried to keep up on the technical side of developments in cryptocurrency. I've been around the Bitcoin scene a while, but after having taken a couple of years out to a family illness, (yes I missed Ethereum) I came back in 2017 to witness the dramatic rise in the value of Bitcoin and the explosion in social media with twitter in particular became swamped in bots, fake accounts, and ICO scams - technology be dammed noobs just wanted their Lambo's today. Enter 2018 and stirrings in the cryptosphere suggest we may see a more technology focussed year, with several projects being released, one of those being the Lightning Network.

Quiet murmurings began this week on twitter as the Lightning Network reached 1000 nodes, and at the time of writing the excitement seems to be building, the Lightning Network Explorer (Testnet) now shows 1539 nodes and rising.

See here for a live node action on the Lightning Explorer Testnet: https://explorer.acinq.co/#/

Yesterday news broke that Lightning Labs had officially launched its lnd 0.4-beta which according to Bitcoin Magazine is "the first beta release of the Lightning software implementation spearheaded by the development company. This makes lnd the first ever Lightning implementation to be marked as beta, meaning that the development team deems it to be feature complete and safe enough for use on Bitcoin’s mainnet."

So, what's new in the space and how will this affect Bitcoin in 2018? According to Olaoluwa Osuntokun CTO of Lightning Labs in an interview in Bitcoin Magazine the 'significant step compared to previous lnd releases is that the new software is compatible with various Bitcoin implementations. Where the alpha versions of lnd relied on btcd to interact with Bitcoin’s blockchain (both lnd and btcd are written in Google’s Go programming language), the beta release gives users the option to use their own preferred backend, including bitcoind (part of Bitcoin Core, in C++), Bcoin (JavaScript) and others.

I found a piece online from the Bitcoinist site that does a great job of of breaking down what they say are '3 revolutions the Lightning Network will bring to Bitcoin'

Firstly - Atomic Multipath Pathways / AMPs

AMPs according to the Lightning Labs blog allow for "large Lightning transactions to be divided into a series of smaller transactions as they’re sent over the Lightning Network, but in such a way that they’re automatically joined back together. The user sees only the total amount of the transaction, without needing to be aware that AMP is being used behind the scenes,”

Secondly - Earning Bitcoin by running a Lightning Node

In this latest version Lnd claims that 'new tools and additions to lnd will help routing node operators optimize revenue, maximize uptime, and manage capital,' those who are the more advanced Lightning users can earn Bitcoin "by running a relay node as part of the network, allowing users to reach their destination in fewer node ‘hops.’"

Thirdly - Cross-Chain Atomic Swaps

Pegged by many as the most exciting feature to be developed this year, the cross-chain atomic swaps will allow a user to make a transaction in one cryptocurrency, and for it to arrive as another, such as Bitcoin to Litecoin. Atomic swaps are nearly instantaneous and don't require a third party. Atomic swaps on top of the Lightning Network is in early development but this could be a game changer.

The latest release from Lightning Labs hasn't gone unnoticed, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, former Paypal COO David Sachs, and Square Capital executive Jacqueline Reses are amongst nearly a dozen investors who recently invested some $2.5 million dollars into Lightning Labs. Sachs has been particularly vocal on the subject, in an interview with Coindesk claimed that 'Lightning is the most important protocol being built on Bitcoin, and Lightning Labs is the best developer of that protocol." The development team over at Lightning Labs have stated that this latest version is the most mature to date, and they believe the software is ready for the Bitcoin mainnet, but they still maintain that caution is advised as bugs may still be found.

So finally some positive news for Bitcoin at the start of 2018. Will lightning strike and we'll see an era of instantaneous transaction speeds and the scaling debate solved? Who knows, but for now many are quietly optimistic, as more investors enter the scene this year could be interesting to watch, as for me I'm off to try and get my head around sidechains.